If you’re not familiar with Belfast rapper Bee Mick See it can be found here. So with that said lets dive straight into his Extended Player – Birds over Nupes. This EP seems a bit more about Bee Mick See himself and for the main part about love and ladies (or lack there of). It starts off with the wonderfully jaunty “Hey Girl”, Bee Mick See’s introduction of himself, He’s setting out his stall so to speak and with that letting us know that it’s Girls over Money and that’s what this EP is all about. Flying in the face of the usual Hip-hip misogyny and objectifying of women, quite the contrary, in fact it’s like he’s making up for the years of abuse Hip-hop has aimed at women. Self-deprecating, funny and looking for love “Hey Girl” is everything you need to know about Bee Mick See in 3 mins and 25 secs. It’s obvious from the off that the production is very high on this EP, the rhymes are slick and as Brendy himself said, there’s less shouting and a lot more attention to what’s being said. This results in being able to fully appreciate the lyrics and enjoy a lot more of the nuances that are being thrown in. I’ve lived with this EP for a week now and must’ve listened to it over 20 times and every time hear something new. Whether it be a lyric or a musical riff or a reference that I didn’t quite get the first time.
Next song “My Favourite” is an ode to the perfect woman. Slighty soppy but in a good funny way. The chorus will stick in your head for days, with guitars creeping in and some kind of demented organ all swirling around as he describes his “favourite Fermanagh lady”. We go from that to “Single” a song all about how it sucks to be single. So I’m not sure what happened to his lady form the last tune, but she’s gone and Brendy is sad. A surprisingly upbeat sing-a-long chorus punctuates his tales of woe. He’s reminiscing, he’s looking forward, he’s basically laying it all out there. Part of the charm of this EP is how personal it seems to be, nothings off limits and when some-one is being as open and honest as he’s being on this record it’s hard not to sympathise, we’ve all been there and these are human tales that would apply to most anyone.
“I’m weak” is ironically my least favourite song of this release. Not that it’s bad per se, it’s just when its surrounded by such other brilliant songs it comes off weaker in my opinion. It has a great fun video that I’ve put above though. Also the production on it doesn’t sound as good quality as the others songs on this. There are some nice heavy guitars though and some clever word play included. So there’s enough to make it worth while listening to but perhaps the play count on this one won’t be as high as the others on the EP. Another point being that the next track is my favourite and the best song on the EP “Who likes laughing”. “I’m going to live my life like a spied at a rave” is part of the infectious Ska infused chorus as sung by Paul Denver. There’s hand claps, call and response and trumpets in this upbeat slice of feel good sunshine. It’s a little bit like one of those things where everything is thrown in and it just ends up working. I think Paul Denver is a brilliant addition, he’s on my other favourite Bee Mick See song “We took a dive” and I would like to see this 2 bring out a release together in the near future.
So there you have it my first ever EP review and I must say in all honesty I could recommend this EP to anyone, it’s a great way to spend 20 minutes.
Bee Mick See has the official launch of the EP this Saturday in Auntie Annies and you can buy a physical copy there on the night or you can head on over to Bandcamp now and buy it for £2. Of course you can stream it off Bandcamp for free as well if you’re feeling a bit tight.
